


Lights!

by metalboxes



Category: 2000 AD (Comics), Strontium Dog
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, for example, he can make a killer quiche, in which johnny grows as a person and learns some life skills, not related to murdering more efficiently, or somewhat anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5603569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metalboxes/pseuds/metalboxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Porn Industry!AU</p><p>It's been three days since the treaty was signed in blood, and seventeen year old child soldier Johnny Alpha isn't all too sure if he wants to be an SD agent or not.</p><p>Life is a journey, not a destination</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights!

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the canonical presence of Madam Sutra's chain of UnCleanGene brothels.

He sits in his chair, one leg crossed over the other as he listens to the man on the other side of this fancy desk talk at him. He stares at the pattern of the wood grain on the table - but there's no way they can know that - and nods at the appropriate moments, but his thoughts are miles away. It's only been three days since the battle of Upminister, and this plush, corporate environment still feels unreal to him. They're mostly centered on the contract in front of him, which would make him an official Search/Destroy Agent under the direction of the Galactic Crime Commission.

He taps a pen against his knee. It's not an easy decision. To be honest, the thought of making the universe a better place kind of appeals to him. And with the war over, he's a little afraid to admit that he's lost for direction. But that was a pretty way of putting it - when it came down to it, he'd still be killing people for money, and for a normie boss who'd be taking a hefty cut of the proceeds. He knows that the GCC are technically thumbing their noses at the Earth government by snatching up a large part of the mutant army as bounty hunters, but he also knows he has a tendency for making other people's problems his own, and he didn't see that working out well in this line of work. And he'd eat his boots if this system wasn't screwed up someplace, somewhere.

And then there's the other matter. The only sentence which caught his attention near the start of this stifling meeting, and he'd been mulling it over since, without knowing exactly why.

"As an organization, we are in need of a specific skillset - yours in particular."

But in need of what? His skill at shooting people? At disarming mines, and blowing them up again? To field strip a thwup-gun in under 30 seconds? Now that he thinks about it, Johnny has the awful, sinking feeling that killing people is literally the only thing he knows how to do. And somehow, he knows that this lifestyle - this mercenary lifestyle - is going to lead him down a path he doesn't think he wants to travel.

It's the easy way out.

He stands up. "No thank you," he declines politely in the middle of a sentence, already pushing the chair back, and walks out of this life.

Later on, while he's weaving through the crowded spaceport with only a duffel bag on his shoulder, he briefly considers joining some of the other vets in settling a frontier world. It's a thought, but he doesn't think he's quite ready to settle down on a backwater dirtball just yet.

So he waves his goodbyes to his compatriots who are scattering all over the galaxy (McNulty informing him cheerfully that he has a feeling they'll be seeing each other again, and Torso wishing him well with jazz hands and a pat on the back), picks a destination on the giant signboard based on the planetary name with the least number of apostrophes and melts into the crowd.

 

* * *

 

The first thing that strikes him about Turus'to is that it's grassy and incredibly temperate. The green rolls all the way into the horizon, plant stalks waving as one mass in the breeze. Although the city isn't too welcoming to muties, he finds that the further he ventures into the countryside, the less attention he garners. Or to be more accurate, allergen goggles are such an omnipresent aspect of life out there that nobody thinks much of it. Honestly, he would never have gone to active lengths to hide his mutation - he was done with all that - if not for the fact that the prospect of him sniffling 84 hours a day forced his sense of pragmatism to reject his pride.

He gets a job as a ranch hand helping out an old couple with their property. They use giant wheat harvesters and machinery here, and it doesn't take him long to get the gist of it. It can't be much harder than driving a tank, after all. It's fine, interspersed with occasional late nightmares and dull ache of the goggle strap. The work is hard, but not backbreaking, and it's a pleasant distraction from the memories of the all too recent war. He gets some measure of glowing satisfaction at the end of the day, seeing the work he's done. A few months pass, and he's racking up skills that don't even involve killing people, like stacking hay bales perfectly, or painting a fence with minimal drippage, or feeding the morks without losing fingers. Stupid things, sure, but he doesn't feel like he's wasting his time. And his employers are kind to him, treating him the same even when they find out he's a mutant.

He's content to stay there as long as he feels he needs to, until one day the cheap anti-fog layering on his goggles wears off. He takes them off on a hot afternoon during his break and a wave of panic and _sheer wrongness_ overtakes him. He's ten again, clutching at his face, totally convinced he's gone blind for fifteen terrifying minutes before he backs into the wooden door of the shed, eyes squeezed shut and gasping.

Through a haze of fogginess, he looks down and sees the cracked lenses squeezed in his hands.

He moves on from Turus'to soon after that.

 

* * *

   
The next planet is a little more metropolitan than Turus'to, being a minor trading station. Ajax is a little more affluent, and the streets are clean and stuffed with storefronts. It's like that everywhere. There's one store like any other with rows and rows of dainty doughnuts and cakes displayed in the window, but what catches Johnny's eye is not the technicolor frosting, but rather the sign which says HELP WANTED. In frosting.

This is where Johnny learns to make pastries.

\---

Alright, so that job ends a bit messily when it turns out that the store's alien owners were in some trouble with some xenophobic local gang. It started with a simple egging, which Johnny had to clean up. And then a brick. Then a fire bomb rolled into the store just before closing time which Johnny instinctively scooped up and threw back out. It failed to go off. The fourth time it happened, Johnny was there around the corner waiting for them. It got a little dangerous at one point when one of the gang members flicked out a knife, but when you've lived in a warzone for most of your life, you earn a higher tolerence for bullsneck mind games. He dumped them out on the street, threw the knife at their feet, and told them not to come back.

They had a reprieve of two weeks until they came back, this time a little more prepared. It all cumulated into him getting in a fight in the kitchens armed with a handful of flour and a pre-heated oven, and then predictably, a ten day stint in a holding cell slapped with four murder charges. And just as predictably, what holding cell wouldn't be complete without a bunch of dumb hick norm cops treating him like a monkey in a cage while speculating about how many nuts he had three feet away from him? The owners bailed him out (i.e. bribed the cops) using the last of the money from selling their store and were deeply apologetic about the whole thing, but the whole thing left a bad taste in his mouth. He doesn't want to be part of this mess, even if something inside him boils at the thought. He wants to fix the universe so bad he rails against the injustice of it, and for the first time he doubts himself.

But he shakes his head and moves on. That wouldn't help. And besides, he could always join up later. But for now, maybe to someplace with more mutants so he wouldn't have to deal with this snecked-up stomm again.

 

* * *

 

Fresh start on Xedonia it was, then.  
  
He finds work at a mutie bar quick enough. It's more than a little seedy. Alright, it's plenty seedy. Mostly because it's a strip bar under a respectable pretence. An experiment of a wealthy owner who wanted to find out how a step up from the average dusty saloon playing mutie cutie on a jukebox in the corner with poles drilled directly into the bartop would do. He's worked in places like that, too. He quit for a reason. But he needs the job, and they pay him a lot more than he would have expected. So he has no reason to decline, really. So he shrugs, and takes his weekly paycheck.  
  
He starts off as a waiter, in a classy outfit which pinches somewhat around the waist. They tell him it's just a sizing mistake, but Johnny is still suspicious. He finds out how to smile in a way people won't stare at, how to fake politeness, and balance a tray of glasses without spilling it. Everyone seems to love him, strangely, and they have only smiles for him. It's kind of nice. Except for the odd rowdy patron refuses to keep his hands to himself or shut the sneck up and tries to grab the dancers. They're his co-workers, and he has respect for the sneck they have to put up with, so he intervenes.  
  
The chump gets bounced off the rockrete curb in no time flat, and after that incident Johnny finds himself being assigned the unofficial bouncer from time to time. As a nice bonus, he receives permission to let the hem out a little so he can actually _move_ in this thing. He's too skinny to discourage trouble before it even starts, but when it comes down to actual business he can throw them out no problem. Management likes him more and more, until he works his way to bartender. He's glad for his dexterity, as he makes and dishes out drinks at a ridiculous rate.  
  
The dancers strike up a fast friendship with the overly-sober kid barely in his twenties who doesn’t creep on them, and _will_ put down a glass mid-polish to come over if you look like you're having a hard time with some snotball. He's a mutie too, like them, which makes things more palatable. Us muties gotta stick together, you know - especially for kids who don't really smile a lot, take stock of exits wherever he goes and look ready to drop everything and run all the time. The more time Johnny spends with them, he finds himself giving them self-defence lessons in their spare time so they can start handling situations themselves, like how to snap a man's neck using your thighs (which comes in handy on one memorable occasion). Likewise, they teach him a few tricks of their own. He does it partly to maintain his hard-earned build, and partly to indulge them, but he finds something warm glowing in his chest as he manages his first successful downsplits variation in a mostly-empty bar to raucous cheering and proud clapping.

Which comes in real handy one day when the biggest draw of Thursday night Big Dick Johnson is sick right before his set - and when their ledgers have been struggling not to dip into the red this month, this isn’t good. He hears the hubbub of the news long before Johnny sees the manager hustling in his direction, and he knows he’s not going to be amused by what he’s about to hear.

“I’m not expecting miracles out of you,” the manager confesses, mopping his two foreheads. “Just strike a few poses for tonight and keep them occupied while I sort this out.” So he gets shuffled out from behind the bar counter, hastily dressed (or rather, undressed) and pushed out onto the stage.

He’s frozen for a second, feeling uncomfortably exposed under the bright stage lights and the heavy weight of attention, but pulls back together into himself. ' _I fought in a war_ ,' he reminds himself as he strikes a sly pose, ignoring the prickling on the back of his neck, then goes on to execute a perfect forward attitude handstand.

And Alpha, with his messy mop of dark curls, high cheekbones and glowing eyes, is an instant hit.

 

* * *

 

"Well, Alpha, I don't know how you did it, but congratulations on bringing in eight thousand creds tonight."

Johnny, who had been pulling off his green thigh high go-go boots with some difficulty, stopped and looked right at the manager.

"You're not kidding me?"  
  
"Oh, I'm deadly serious." The manager beamed, his cheeks glowing red. Literally. "We've been thinking about making a few changes to your schedule."  
  
"No." Johnny responded flatly.  
  
"Just listen to me first!" The manager protested hastily. "You're still the bartender. Nothing drastic, just half an hour on a Friday night. We'll make it an event. And you can keep whatever those crazy broads stuff down your briefs."  
  
Johnny glanced down at his aforementioned briefs, and they were admittedly, haphazardly packed with a lot of creds. High denomination too.  
  
The manager, sensing his weakening resolve, pounced.  
  
"And I'll give you an hour every Tuesday and Friday to work on your dancing skills. The others can help."  
  
That was essentially a break and they both knew it. Still, Johnny knew he was a little over stressed with the workload, and time snatched here and there with his (dare he say it?) friends outside of closing times seemed fairly attractive.  
  
Ugh.  
  
Johnny scowled. "Fine. I'll do it."  
  
The manager clapped his hands and grinned. "Excellent! We'll get started with your proper outfit immediately. Donnie has a few ideas already!"

 

* * *

 

And so about a week later, Johnny found himself staring at a costume of a deadly sexy SD agent packing some real heat, with an appropriately placed leather holster and badge. And a pouch-lined garterbelt.  
  
Johnny didn't know whether this was karmic retribution or not.

 


End file.
